Team Boson
- |country= |allegiance= |branch= - |type= * * * |role= *Spartan support operations *Assassination team *Investigations team |size= *1 Liaison officer *2-6 *1 |command_structure= |garrison=New Phoenix, URNA, Earth |nickname= *"Bozos" *"Bumbling Boson" |patron= |motto= |colors= |march= |mascot= |anniversaries= |equipment= |battles= |decorations= |battle_honors= |commanders= *MJR Kyser Duceppe *LCDR Derek Frendsen *SPARTAN Ryder Kedar |notable_commanders= }} '''Team Boson, also known as Ferret Team Boson and Training Unit Bravo-Three, is a Spartan combat unit formed exclusively from graduates of SPARTAN-III Delta Company and previously commanded by Major Kyser Duceppe. The team's roster include and -qualified personnel. Team Boson is also a former element of VIOLET-III and Internal Investigations Unit 419. Originally made up of Daniele-D003, Merlin-D032, Andra-D054, Roxanne-D107, and Zach-D111, the five children-turned-Spartans were sorted together during training. Since then, they have retained a family-like union that stands above their loyalties to their government and military, even when strained by desertion. Orphaned by the , Team Boson was scouted originally as a Spartan unit for fighting the alien , however, their mission changed from conventional warfare to internal security affairs when the war ended. Due to their unique role assignment, Team Boson was among several Spartan units to experience lives beyond strict-military oversight. Even when driven apart by outside forces, the friends share a wish to reunite once again. In time, their familial structure has grown to include new and old friends of Team Boson including Shizuko-D081 and the , Althea. __TOC__ 'Service History' 'Shared Origins' With the Human-Covenant War still raging in late 2552, the fourth iteration of the , Delta Company was actively seeking recruits while the third iteration, SPARTAN-III Gamma Company, began to wind down. Then in November of that year, the colony world employed by the SPARTAN-III Program, , was destroyed in a between the Covenant, the , and the that protected the within. Without a world and many resources lost, the SPARTAN-III program was jeopardized by a lack of funds and bureaucratic support within the , the program's sponsor and financier. Within months of Onyx's destruction, the Human-Covenant War began to approach its conclusion with the concurrent that was the United Nations Space Command triumph over Covenant forces on the Human homeworld. The need for the SPARTAN-III Program's continuation was trivialized by the Covenant War's end and Gamma Company never saw mass deployment during the conflict. Following the death of , the SPARTAN-III Program's former director, in the , Rear Admiral Jazmine Utah saw to replace him and made a hard push to continue the activities and recruitment of SPARTAN-III Delta Company into 2553 and onward. The pitch was ultimately denied by her ONI superiors and funding was transferred to the new which was determined to be less morally-dubious since it used augmented adult volunteers rather than the SPARTAN-III program's illegal acquisition and conversion of war orphans into child-soldiers. Through private donations and economic manipulation inside the fragile Post-War Era economy, the SPARTAN-III Program continued operations in secret, going against Utah's orders to begin shuttering the project entirely. Due to the final major battles of the Covenant War, the SPARTAN-III Program actually had a surplus of available children to recruit into Delta Company with as many as 475 prospects from genetic census data. Ultimately, only about three hundred of those orphaned children were recruited into the project and delivered to Argus V, the new Spartan-training-planet, in late 2553. Among these new recruits were the five children that would become the foundation of Spartan Team Boson: Andra Bradford, Daniele Veracruz, Merlin Ljang Boyd, Roxanne Savage, and Zachariah Weaver. Similar to children that became Spartans in the other iterations of the SPARTAN-III Program, the Spartan-hopefuls of Delta Company were war orphans, the majority of which lost their families in Covenant attacks. A shared quality between the future members of Team Boson was their late or lacking interactions with Covenant forces. This was intriguingly noted by the recruiters who handled the five specific cases, Doctor Reyna Zhou-Romero and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Korn. The minor commonalities between the children went on to inform Korn's decision to put them together as a Spartan training unit. Andra Bradford was the daughter of an Army combat medic mother and a stay-at-home father employed by . Her mother was killed in combat during the , far from where Andra lived on . In January 2551, Andra's father killed himself after a bad winter of work suspension, drugs, insomnia, and rage attacks directed at his daughter. Andra was recruited out of the Jade Hope Youth Treatment Center in April 2552, just months before the Covenant arrived and bombarded Sigma Octanus IV. It took mild coaxing from Doctor Romero to embolden Andra to enter Spartan training, Andra's trauma regarding her deceased father would be a continued inhibition throughout her Spartan training. In 2547, Daniele Veracruz and his father witnessed on their home colony of . Daniele's mother was at work when the invasion began and was presumed dead after a Covenant warship destroyed her office. In 2550, Daniele's father was killed by Earth police after becoming involved in refugee riots against the California Land Comission. Daniele ended up at San Diego's Sunny Shores Foster Facilities. He joined the youth crime ring, Child Crusaders, to keep himself fed when the orphanage kept running out of food. Arrested in 2552 for a number of delinquent crimes, Daniele was offered the option of attending juvvy until he reached adult-age or become a ward of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Daniele ultimately chose ONI and joined the SPARTAN-III Program. Merlin Ljang Boyd was the son of parents employed by the Office of Naval Intelligence. His mother worked with ONI's Section II department, Public Relations, while his father served as shipboard security detail in the . Within the course of 2549, Merlin's parents were killed during the and the respectively. Merlin was marked as an orphan and transferred to a military orphanage. Following the first incursion by Covenant forces on Merlin's home planet of in 2552, Merlin encountered recruiters from the SPARTAN-III Program and was offered a place in Delta Company. While Merlin had little concept of the Covenant War and had spent most of his childhood relatively sheltered, he jumped at the chance to serve Humanity like his parents. Roxanne Savage lived in the rural town of on when the Covenant arrived. On June 23, 2552, Covenant scouting parties assaulted Visegrád's farms one by one, killing the residents. Roxanne's parents were killed in the fields outside their home. Roxanne's older brother hid Roxanne in the family's cellar while he went to find their other sibling. He did not return. The alien incursion was eventually thwarted by a passing through Roxanne's community the next day. While the unit never discovered the girl, she was eventually found by and evacuated to the city of and later to an orbital settlement in the . At the temporary holding facility, Roxanne encountered recruiters for the SPARTAN-III Program and agreed to join Delta Company. Zachariah Weaver was the son of a wealthy business tycoon and a long-since-divorced mother. Living on , Zachariah witnessed to the same that struck Reach. Evacuated to a private shuttle, Zachariah escaped Tribute and retreated to Earth, however, his father was pinned down by Covenant forces and was assumed dead. With no immediate family and his father's company spiraling into bankruptcy, Zachariah was moved into the foster care system and his family's and company's assets were liquidated by the UNSC emergency government or auctioned off to rival corporations to support the ongoing defense of Human space. It was in , Australia that Zachariah was acquired by the Office of Naval Intelligence and recruited into Delta Company. Locked away into cryogenic storage, the children were packed up like merchandise and disappeared from public records by SPARTAN-III Program Smart AI, Delphi. Loaded up aboard a freighter, the UNSC Give Me More, the 300 children including the future Team Boson arrived on Argus V by mid-to-late 2553 with an uncertain future ahead of them. 'Training Days' 'Spartan Roster' 'Andra Kearsarge' Andra-D054, also known as Andra Kearsarge by personal preference, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate, the significant other of Merlin-D032, and Joshua-G024's protege. The resident sharpshooter and bomb technician for Ferret Team Boson, she earned herself many monikers for her reputation as a frustrating student and unorthodox combatant. Raised by her ONI-employed father on Sigma Octanus IV, Andra's childhood was innocent until her mother's death fighting in the Covenant War. Consumed by grief, her father spiraled into a period of abusive drunkenness that ended in suicide. Proven too emotionally-volatile for adoption, Andra was recruited by the Office of Naval Intelligence for the SPARTAN-III program. Andra's journey through Spartan training was marked by her ongoing battle with depression. Only through the support of her friends and mentors did she graduate from Delta Company. The mentorship of Joshua-G024 played a significant role in propelling Andra to become a Ferret operator and Spartan Headhunter. However, Andra's emotional growth has suffered from losing close friends. 'Daniele Veracruz' Daniele-D003, born Daniele Veracruz and nicknamed Danny, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate and was a former juvenile delinquent of the United Republic of North America. Prodigal but quiet, Daniele established himself as a talent above and beyond his peers and received command of Ferret Team Boson in recognition. Originally from Skopje, Daniele witnessed his planet's destruction firsthand. Coupled with the killing of his father by Earth police, Daniele joined up with the street urchin gang, Child Crusaders, to survive. Jefferson Korn of the Office of Naval Intelligence took note of Daniele's criminal background and recruited him into the SPARTAN-III program. With Delta Company, Daniele was a standout trainee often compared to fellow prodigy, Marcellus-D070. Though pushed into training, Daniele adapted quickly and developed a close friendship with Korn, and later, Korn's AI assistant, Cathedral. A personally-loyal individual and close-quarters specialist, he performed military service as a Ferret operator and as a mercenary employed by the Glass Raiders piracy union. Had he not deserted from the military, he might have become a Spartan Headhunter. 'Merlin Ljang Boyd' Merlin-D032, born Merlin Ljang Boyd, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate and the significant other of Andra-D054. Sharp and emotionally perceptive, Merlin specialized in support and intelligence roles as Ferret Team Boson's point man, spotter, scout, and a resident klutz. The orphaned son of ONI civilian contractors, Merlin grew up in a sheltered home and orphanage until he was recruited into the SPARTAN-III Program following a failed Covenant attack on Ballast, his homeworld. Merlin performed average in training, however, he developed a poor reputation for the friends and individuals he associated with. Though his poor choices often turned out fine, he graduated Spartan training with few distinctions. A very loyal individual, Merlin was one of the last Spartans to hold onto the Team Boson mantle in its darkest hours. His highest certifications including Spartan Headhunter were awarded due to his ongoing association with more qualified individuals rather than his own merits. With a lack of self-confidence and detractors on all sides, Merlin has struggled with doubts about his Spartan status and life purpose. 'Roxanne Savage' Roxanne-D107, born Roxanne Savage and nicknamed Rox, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate. The medical specialist, vehicle technician, and spokeswoman of Ferret Team Boson, Roxanne provided her technical skills and unwavering, talkative warmth to her team all the way up to her desertion and return to her glassed homeworld. The youngest child of three and an only daughter in a farming family on Reach, Roxanne's exposure to the Covenant War came at its tail-end during the Fall of Reach. Losing her entire family to Kig-Yar scavengers, she was saved by Spartans and Army Special Forces then moved to an off-planet holding facility where she was recruited into the SPARTAN-III Program by Naval Intelligence. Trained for general combat, Roxanne developed a capacity for combat medicine late into her Spartan education, predominantly in interacting with medical machine hardware that later developed into a certification for vehicle maintenance and basic piloting. While her loyalty for her team was strong, her fear of the Created motivated her to return to Reach to hide. 'Matsui Shizuko' Shizuko-D081 (Japanese Katakana/Kanji: シズ子), born Matsui Shizuko, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate and the older sister of fellow Spartan, Daiki-D217. Among the best trainees in her graduating class, Shizuko displayed considerable proficiency in all her weapon qualifications and rose quickly to the position of leader on Team Entropy. Born the eldest child of three in a refugee camp on Minister, Shizuko grew up around sectarian tensions between refugees and residents. The eventual riots on Minister ended in tragedy for the Matsui family, and soon after, Shizuko and her younger brother were whisked away by recruiters from the Office of Naval Intelligence for Spartan training. Her first field assignment hunting Covenant extremists after graduating from Delta Company turned deadly, ending in the dissolution of her unit. Reassigned to ONI's Spartan Headhunter division as a lone operative, Shizuko attempted to bury her grief in constant deployments and extended cryostasis to keep her demons at bay. Following multiple deployments with Ferret Team Boson, she was absorbed into the unit to fill their dwindling ranks. 'Zachariah Weaver' Zach-D111, born Zachariah Weaver or simply Zach, is a SPARTAN-III commando who trained with the illicit Delta Company. The youngest member of Ferret Team Boson and formerly the most bombastic, Zachariah turned his unfocused anger into dutiful action after mellowing in age. His coolness under pressure makes him a confident communicator and warfighter with an overbearing, go-getter attitude. Born and raised by his single business tycoon of a father, Zachariah never knew his mother and grew up as heir to a modest-sized interstellar freight corporation. When the Covenant attacked Tribute, Zachariah was successfully evacuated to Earth but his father was killed and much of his company was destroyed, falling into bankruptcy. With nowhere to turn, he jumped at the opportunity provided by recruiters for the SPARTAN-III Program. Passionate for weapons in general, Zachariah became certified as Ferret Team Boson's weapons maintainer and heavy weapons specialist. Following multiple desertions among Delta Company, Zachariah distanced himself from his team and joined ONI's Project BRUTUS as a junior Spartan liaison. While proud of his Spartan status, he has found enjoyment in a partial civilian life far more than his peers. 'Relationships' 'Team Anion' 'Team Entropy' 'Team Xiphos' 'References' Category:SPARTAN Category:Delta Company